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The Chronicles of Randolph Carter
The Chronicles of Randolph Carter is a surreal novel written by Kye Lewis Byllesby. Its writing started in fall of 2016, and was finished up in summer of 2019, when it was finally published, although never revised. The Chronicles of Randolph Carter is a satire on the nature of storytelling and plot threads. The story was published through Kindle Direct Publishing. Plot Summary Part 1: The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath The first part of the story features our protagonist, Randolph Carter, and his voyage to obtain entry to Unknown Kadath from his hometown (in the Dream World) of Posprit. Carter arrives at the Corpsefield and after a short altercation with the guardian of the Corpsefield, Demon Banneret, he meets with his friend Pickman and they rally the Ghoul Army for his quest. Their next stop is Ulthar, where Carter solves a brief problem with a local cat-napper named Baron Aurr before recruiting some local anthropomorphic cats to his cause. At Sarnath, a place where the camp for the night, they must leave Pickman and the Ghouls behind in favor of going on as the Ib attack the party there. Upon getting to the foot of the Mountains of Madness, the cats must be left behind too, as they lay their eyes on the Shoggoth and go insane. Carter continues to the chambers of Nyarlathotep, who entrusts him with a hippogriff and promises him safe passage to Unknown Kadath, only for it to be a trap set by the God of Chaos himself. The story ends with Carter dying and waking up in Boston. Part 2: The Death of Randolph Carter Carter at some point after the events of the last part moved to Berlin, where he finds it interesting that World War I is going on. After finding a poster on the Berlin Wall (which didn't exist yet), Carter then goes to his local recruiting station, where they send him into the front lines to be a part of the war effort on the western front. While in a trench, after Carter notes the horrible living conditions, Carter is blown up by mortar fire and he proceeds to die again. Part 3: Shattered Dreamscape Carter wakes up in Нью-Йорк, a city in the Dream World and immediately befriends a man that he sees under attack by law enforcement after a few hours of wandering. The man, named Друг, then goes out to eat with Carter, where they are attacked by Вампир, a cyborg assassin in the Dream World. Вампир claims there is a high bounty on Carter due to the fact that he had apparently killed Nyarlathotep, which couldn't be possible. A brief fight occurs and Carter accompanies Друг on a trip to Desierto to see something that he has been studying. On the way to Desierto, Carter and Друг are attacked by an assassin from the Rassist Federation who wishes to stop them from reaching their destination and ruining their plans. Another brief fight later and the assassin leaves. Друг enters the testing site, but Carter cannot, much to his dismay. Instead, he climbs through the ventilation shafts and watches the events going on. He views Друг talking to Dr. Granjavalor, a scientist observing a new species that was discovered called the Pilares due to the nature of their existence inside of pillars. One struggle later with the escaped Pilares, who was dubbed "Dio" by Granjavalor, and both Carter and Друг leave Granjavalor for dead, hoping to go on a nice vacation to Avvio. In Avvio, while sightseeing, Carter accosts a man named Fumo, who is creating smoke in the area. Shocked by his blatant disregard for public airspace, Carter then goes with him (and brings Друг, of course) to a coliseum to watch the unveiling of three new Pilares, who kill most of the people at the coliseum and nearly kill Carter, Fumo and Друг as well. Colpire and Corrente, the two Pilares serving the third, Macchine, use their "Majyyks" to induce a state on Carter that will cause him to die within 30 days if they don't kill them in time. The gang then leave to train with Insegnante, Fumo's master. Upon their arrival at Insegnante's palace, where they meet two ant people she has been training known as Brett and Jemaine, it is revealed that both Carter and Друг have no ability to use "Majyyks" in the slightest. So, they sit out the training and watch the other three do their work. While the other three are training, Insegnante reveals that she used to be friends with Carter's mother. Insegnante also states that she has the one thing that the Pilares need most to achieve their goal of becoming the perfect life forms: the Pietra Rossa. One month later, Carter is preparing the arena for Fumo's final exam when suddenly, Corrente arrives and attacks Insegnante's island. Astonished, in spite of his inability to use Majyyks, Carter is able to kill Corrente, who manages to kill Jemaine. However, Corrente's heart then possesses the body of Joe Hawley, the butler of Insegnante and Carter's implied romantic interest, who uses his body to mail the Pietra Rossa to Schweiss, the base of operations for the Pilares. After killing Corrente's heart, they follow the mail train to Schweiss by another train. On the train, the gang is attacked by a pair of assassin sisters named Zubin and Sedghi, who manipulate the "Majyyks" to make people age at a faster rate. However, all of the other "Majyyk" users are unfazed by this, and Insegnante kills them very easily in combat. The next day, they are awoken by Detective Reynolds, a penguin detective who claims to be searching for his old master (whom he only refers to as "Holmes") and whoever murdered the two assassins the day before. After doing a quick investigation of the train with them, they find an old journal which the penguin foolishly opens and is killed. Once the spirits inside the journal are set free, it is revealed that the penguin actually was his old master trapped in the body of a penguin, and that the entire train was a trap set up by the Pilares as a means of getting the Pietra Rossa, which they didn't have in the first place. Carter and the rest of those who are still alive eventually arrive at the headquarters of the Rassist Federation in Schweiss, who have stolen the Pietra Rossa from them while they were on the illusion of the Phantom Train. It turns out that Granjavalor was working with them the whole time, and she has turned her body into a vampiric one in order to extend her own lifespan. However, soon Macchine attacks the headquarters and slaughters nearly everyone there, including Hawley, Друг and Granjavalor. Furious, Fumo heads off to hideout of the Pilares to finish things off, with Brett in tow. Once he gets there, he and Colpire have a standoff, where he eventually kills Colpire by focusing beams of sunlight into him and disintegrating his body, but then he immediately is crushed by a large pillar supporting the ceiling. Brett is also killed by Colpire slicing his arm off and letting him bleed out slowly to death. Insegnante and Carter follow but are too late to do anything, but then they make a deal with Macchine: One fight with Insegnante for the Pietra Rossa. Macchine agrees, and they duel. However, Macchine cheats by using a body double and kills Insegnante (right after she reveals herself to be Carter's real mother), and immediately afterwards becomes the ultimate lifeform and kills Carter once again. Part 4: The End Future Kye Byllesby, the narrator, tells the story of how he met Randolph Carter in the Dream World by utilizing his "Majyyks", which have been now revealed to actually be called Chromosomes. He finds that the chat he has with Carter is delightful, so he wishes to invite him over for his dinner party. Upon his return to the Dream World, he finds it hard to find Carter, so he speaks with Pickman and with the assassin who attacked Carter and Друг on the way over to Desierto. Eventually, he finds the corpse of Randolph Carter, and reincarnates him to be at the great dinner party of the six paths. After describing each member of his dinner party, each one being somebody of importance to Kye - Randolph Carter, the most delightful man he ever met, Terry Handy, his favorite teacher and the man who taught him the way of the Chromosome, Yahtzee, the father of Kye's best friend and somebody who was able to outwit him on one occasion, Jack, his beloved cat, Snake Bite Sneck Christian Coleman, a version of his other best friend from a Canvas where he's Snake Bite Sneck, and the reader of the story themselves. Once this explanation is finished, all of the people arrive at the dinner party, and it is then revealed that the entire storyline had been a recounting of Future Kye from the end of the dinner party to the reader, as they were late to the party. He also reveals that the entire party was just a setup to obtain more bodies for his newly acquired Samsara Eyes, and that now he had enough to engage the next stage of his plan. The story ends with a recap of what happened to everyone who didn't die. Main Characters Protagonists * Randolph Carter, a man from Boston who loves to adventure. * Pickman, a former artist-turned-ghoul and good friend of Carter. * Дpyг, a janitor who ends up getting roped into Carter's adventures. * The Reader, the person who is receiving the story. Antagonists * Kye Lewis Byllesby, the Narrator. * Nyarlathotep, the God of Chaos and creator of Chromosomes. * Macchine, the leader of the Pilares and (former) "Ultimate Lifeform". Concept and Creation Background The Chronicles of Randolph Carter was originally not intended to be a book at all. The author just would use the character from time-to-time in school narrative projects. However, once his teachers kept giving him consistent praise for his writing, he decided to compile all of his work into one large story. Writing The span of Kye's work writing The Chronicles of Randolph Carter was over the course of three years, with him writing one part each year, with the exception of the third and fourth. Writing of the first took him no time at all, and was only around a day, same with the second. However, once he decided to finish it, it took him nearly a year on the third part, which had gone through many ideas before he finally settled on a basic premise. His first idea was to feature a new villain, who had slain Nyarlathotep, known as Baron Latin and feature a much larger cast of characters and a much more complicated story. Eventually, he realized that this kind of storytelling was not fit for his short Carter-romps, and decided on another idea: one of Randolph Carter entering a country-wide horse race. Before he finished the first chapter of this idea, he scrapped it as well. He finally came upon the premise of Carter back in the Dream World after much deliberation with himself. Once he started writing from there, the rest flowed naturally. Influences Kye's writing includes many influences from many other people's works. The most prominent of these is that of the works of author H.P. Lovecraft, specifically his works on the Dream Cycle. The entire idea of a Dream World stems from this, as well as the characters of Randolph Carter, Pickman, Nyarlathotep, the Ib, and the Shoggoth. Some locations that are taken from his work include Ulthar, Unknown Kadath, Sarnath and the Mountains of Madness. One other major influence on his work is the writings of Hirohiko Araki, of course from his most iconic work of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. The third part of the story takes a lot of inspiration from the story of the second part of Araki's epic, Battle Tendency, with the characters being based off of many characters from the work in question. (Дpyг being Smokey Brown, Вампир being Straizo, Dr. Granjavalor being Major Rudol Von Stroheim, Fumo being Caesar Anthonio Zeppeli, the Pilares representing the Pillarmen, and by extension, Dio name of a separate character in the work as Santana, Colpire as Wamuu, Macchine as Kars, and Colpire as Esisdisi. Brett, Jemaine and Joe Hawley represent the minor characters of Messina, Loggins, and Suzi Q. Donovan could possibly be represented by the Assassin with a Lisp, but that is just speculation.) Part 5 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Golden Wind, ''is also an inspiration for the third part of the story, albeit less so. The fight with Zubin and Sedghi (Who, in ability and personality, are analogous to Pesci and Prosciutto) takes place on a train and has similar plot beats to the fight from ''Golden Wind, although it is much shorter. Kye also seems to take some inspiration from music, with Brett and Jemaine being references in name to the band members Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie from Flight of the Conchords. Likewise, Joe Hawley, Zubin and Sedghi are intended to be parodying Joe Hawley and Zubin Sedghi, former members of the band Tally Hall. Baron Aurr is an obvious first letter swap of Aaron Burr, a major character in the musical Hamilton. Some minor references include Demon Banneret in the Corpsefield and the Bard Knight being references to the characters of Specter Knight (who lives in the Lichyard) and the Bard Knight from the video game Shovel Knight, Helmuth von Moltke being a real person, Detective Reynolds being both a reference to the penguin detective, Detective Pennington from Paper Mario: The Thousand Year-Door ''and a reference to Ryan Reynolds' role in the film ''Detective Pikachu. (His first name is obviously derived from the work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes.) Finally, the Samsara Eye is heavily based on the Rinnegan from the Naruto franchise created by Masashi Kishimoto, down to the idea of a "Six Paths" technique.